History

The public development of modification started in August, 2005 by the GTAForums.com user xrk, mainly as a simple 'map mod'. All that users received was the Liberty City from GTA III instead of default San Andreas landscape. Installation of modification was difficult and demanded use of Steve-m's Map Cleaner. The city yet did not have completeness, there were no LOD models, missed some of collision data, no paths for peds & traffic, but interest to modification was significant. With help of new developers NathanHenry (map conversion) and AdTec_224 (scenario conversion), modification began to develop quicker.

Beta 3

Beta 3 released at December 13, 2005. It contained great set of changes, including added water, Portland El train system, parked cars, weapons & pickups and first missions (although only Paramedic was reliable in that time). Hundreds of people have downloaded it, new developers have joined the project, including Monitor57 who started GTA III cars conversion and dingleman who started creation of Hi-res textures pack and new weather & water effects. Several moderate updates quickly followed. Although the main conception of total conversion for GTA III porting was defined, developers has faced to the first problems with shortage of time IRL and lack of tools, such as ped & traffic paths editor. In 2006, developers mostly worked internally, without major public updates.

Beta 4

When xrk in April, 2007 has partially left the project, NathanHenry became main modification maintainer. Beta 4 released at May 6, 2007. It included LOD models, new lighting system, usable Camera and Parachute, some ped&traffic paths, interiors and Claude player model. It also came with the installer and did not require preliminary use of Map Cleaner. In August, 2007 new developer GTAfanattic have joined project team, with numerous fixes and conversions provided. In December, 2007 large updates were released, with improved player model, GTA III-styled radar, 99% completed ped&traffic paths, fixed train system and first part of GTA III cars converted. Later GTAfanattic has replaced NathanHenry on post of modification maintainer.

A customized Claude in GTASA: Liberty City Beta 6 causing mayhem around Portland.

Beta 5

Beta 5 released at January 3, 2008. From changes are noted new weather system, return of seabed, working save garages and Pay 'n' Spray, gangs and gang vehicles, GTA III car handling & colors and several missions, including all of Marty Chonks payphone missions. This time the project team encountered large problems with game stability, about half of users have reported about various crashes with modification. During first quarter of 2008, four updates were issued, the developers were forced to use SA Limit Adjuster and drop some of already converted ambient sounds. Besides corrections, the insignificant amount of changes was brought, including working Subway, GTA III HUD and some of cars ported. The last Update 4 released at March 7, 2008. After it, no appreciable updates were issued.

Beta 6

After GTAFannatic had officially left the team, Dingleman took over in early 2010 and worked up a new Beta with some of the help of a few new team members. Some notable changes include the function of the casino games, a haircut/clothing customisation system, gym interiors with usable equipment as well as the ability to learn new "moves", other new interiors, recruitable Yakuza gang members, several map improvements and more. Though there were complaints upon the beta's release of various bugs, there were none reported that were that new and were not in the previous beta releases. There has not yet been any updates for the mod since this beta's release due to its recency of release, but there have been announcements of a hotfix to improve stabilization and fix a majority of the reported glitches.

Current state

Completeness

The Liberty City transferred with great accuracy. You can drive on all three islands, save in Safehouses, use Bomb shops and Pay 'n' Spray garages, fight against GTA III gangs patrolling the streets, move by Portland El and Subway train systems. Some little lacks still present, such as wrong traffic direction in some places, minor errors in collision data and missing Shoreside Lift Bridge animation. About half of original GTA III cars present in last version of modification. Missions scenario still in early stages, the only missions available are Marty Chonks payphone missions, Paramedic mission in Portland and the Gripped!. Some of GTA San Andreas features present, including planes, motorbikes, swimming, eating (vendors only), haircuts, clothing and gym. Present interiors taken from GTA San Andreas without changes.

Installation

You must download the Beta 6 installer. It can be found in the mods GTAGarage page, its GTAForums topic and on the Official Website (Links at the bottom of this page).

The modification is not compatible with other mods, install it over fresh installation of GTA San Andreas.

Versions 1.01 and 2.0 of game are not supported due limitations in third-party libraries used. But you can try to install modification over them and then delete d3d9.dll, saloader.ini files and cleo folder from game`s directory. The menu will be messed up and crashes may occur.

Hold down 'H' for a few seconds while on foot to disable the HUD, and hold 'G' in the same manner to re-enable it.

Collect Hidden Packages around Liberty City. On top of the GTAIII weapon bonuses you will also get a Jetpack at your Staunton Island hideout after finding 90, and a Hydra at Phil's Army Surplus after finding 100.